Monotony is Futile
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: It was supposed to be a nice, quiet, peaceful vacation to rest and recuperate after a series of exhausting missions...the A-Team should've known it would never go as they planned.
1. Chapter 1

Monotony is Futile

"This is getting ridiculous!" Face exclaimed as they sped away in B.A.'s van after another encounter with Decker and his gang of merry MPs, "it's getting so we can't even turn around anymore without these goons showing up."

"And what about me?" Murdock fumed, and took off his baseball cap to show the three bullet holes in it, "they shot at me, _me_!" He groaned and held his cap against his chest, "what am I going to do now? I can't go around wearing this, people will talk!"

"If _you_ don't stop talking, you crazy fool," B.A. warned him from the driver's seat, "I'm gonna put you to sleep for a week!"

Face noted the light snoring coming from the front passenger seat and commented, "He may have company." He leaned over to see that Hannibal had actually fallen asleep during their getaway. "Hannibal!"

"Huh? Wha?" Hannibal opened his eyes and sat up straight.

"What are we going to do now?" Face asked.

Hannibal let out a particularly loud yawn and told his men, "I think a vacation is in order. For the past two months we've been on the dead run globetrotting for new missions and dodging Decker and his cronies at every turn. If we don't get some R&R soon, none of us are going to be any good for another job."

"You know I'm always game for a vacation," Face said, "But where would we go?"

"We ain't flying," B.A. told them.

"Gee, how did I know he was going to say that?" Murdock asked sarcastically, "does that mean Hawaii's out of the question?"

"Afraid so, Captain," Hannibal answered, "this won't be a typical vacation, no tropics, no private islands, and sorry, Face, no girls in grass skirts and bikinis catering to your every whim."

Face grunted.

Hannibal continued, "I think the best kind of vacation we can take right now is one that keeps us in the area but under the radar."

"How're we going to do that?" Face asked.

"Simple," Hannibal explained, "We get Decker chasing a red herring that we're going to leave the country on another mission. He'll follow the trail till it's cold about 5,000 miles away, and we stay in town and just take it easy. No disguises, no covers, no firefights, no high speed chases."

"Oh really?" Face asked, "Does that also mean no bar fights or jumping onto moving trains or opening fire from helicopters? No building or welding anything?"

"Aw gee, then where's the fun in that?" Murdock whined.

"Shut up, fool," B.A. warned him.

"Yes sir," Murdock quietly complied.

"What we need is a vacation with no jet lag, seasickness, rush hour traffic, foreign food, different time zones, water you can't drink, crazed natives, exotic animals, etc.," Hannibal told them, "What we _need_ is a week to recuperate, catch some z's, get out in the fresh air, and just take it easy."

"Sounds like a plan to me, Colonel," Murdock said, "uh, is there going to be TV?"

"The only thing is where do we stay?" Hannibal asked, "Home is too obvious, any hotel could have military spies with an eye out for us."

"How about a 7-11?" Murdock asked, "It's air conditioned, there's plenty to eat and they never close."

"A tempting offer, Murdock," Hannibal said as he took out a half used cigar from his pocket and relit it, "But we're going to have to think of something more permanent."

"Hey, I might have an idea," Face said.

" _You_ have an idea?" Murdock asked, "We're all gonna die."

Face leaned over the front seat and said to the colonel, "Hannibal, hand me the phone, I've got a call to make."

Hannibal picked up the van's phone and passed it to the backseat, "Who're you calling?"

"I might know somebody that'll let us stay at their house," Face explained.

"If that's so, that solves half our problem," Hannibal said, "The other half is how to lure Decker out of the country and off our backs?"

"You got a plan, Hannibal?" B.A. asked.

"I'm working on it," Hannibal said as he blew out a puff of smoke, "And it _is_ going to require flying."

* * *

A convoy of MP cars pulled up at the airport just in time for Decker to see Hannibal walking up the plane steps with B.A. slung over his shoulder.

"They're not getting away this time," Decker said as they sped towards the plane.

What Decker didn't know was that the A-Team had arrived in ample time to lay out some traps to stop him and the MPs in their tracks. Several loud pops were heard as the cars skidded every which way, some knocked into each other, a couple flipped on their sides. Decker crawled out through his window and saw that they had driven through a pile of scattered six-inch nails and pieces of rebar. He wasn't sure how they did it, but the A-Team had managed to make it all blend in with the asphalt leading out towards the runway.

The stairs were starting to go up, but not before Decker could see Hannibal standing in the doorway tauntingly waving bye-bye as the plane started to move.

"I'm going to get the A-Team if it's the last thing I do," Decker grumbled. He missed the murmured remarks by some of the young MPs that at this rate, it very well _could_ be.

"What now, Colonel?" Captain Crane asked.

"At least we know where they're going," Decker said, "Peck was overheard when he scammed that plane saying the A-Team was traveling to Bangladesh to meet with some people who helped them a year ago on one of the jobs they pulled."

"Can we get clearance to follow them halfway across the globe, Colonel?" Crane asked.

" _I'm_ clearing us, Crane," Decker told him, "I'm going to let the general know we're going to need one of the best jets in the military, and we're going to track the A-Team down and bring them back for trial. Smith and his men aren't going to slip through our fingers again."

* * *

"Have a nice trip!" Murdock waved as they watched the military jet take off.

"I have a feeling when Decker and Crane arrive in Bangladesh, they're going to stick out like a couple of sore thumbs," Face said as they drove back in his 'Vette.

"One thing you can always count on Decker to do is underestimate us," Hannibal added.

"No kidding, he _really_ thinks I'd accidentally tell everybody where we're going so he can follow us?" Face asked.

"He'll _never_ suspect we ditched that plane two miles away," Hannibal said.

"B.A. must be thrilled though," Face said, "for once he didn't have to get on the plane."

"And I'll just bet that big ol' angry mudsucker is just grinning from ear to ear waiting for us to get back," Murdock commented from where he sat behind them.

"It was pretty genius of him to put that dummy B.A. together with potato sacks and a piece of denim," Hannibal said, "A lot _lighter_ to carry than the real thing."

"Now we're on _vacation_!" Murdock exclaimed.

"Speaking of which, Face," Hannibal said, "Who's this friend of yours lending us their house?"

"Tori Langdon," Face answered without taking his eyes off the road as he drove them back to town.

"Any relation to baby-faced Harry?" Murdock asked.

"I doubt it."

"She's an actress," Hannibal said as he turned to look at Face.

"Yeah, you met her?" Face asked.

"No, but during the last Aquamanaic movie, we had to divide the time on the set between our movie and the one she was making," Hannibal said, "So we had to be out by 5 every day so they could come in and shoot all night."

"A legit actress?" Murdock asked and leaned over the front seat, "So she's not one of those amateurs you work with just to string them along?"

"No, actually she used to make movies when she was younger, then she disappeared from the limelight for a while, she just recently made a comeback," Face explained. "She made enough from her last movie to buy a mansion out in Beverly Hills. It'll be the perfect place for us to stay, plenty of room and nobody around."

"You're dating her?" Hannibal asked.

"Well I wouldn't say dating exactly," Face answered, "We've never really been serious, we get together once in a while and have a little fun, she's just a nice girl who it comes in handy to know, to be honest she's not much of a looker, but there are advantages to being in her confidence."

"If she'll let us stay at her house and not call the cops on us, I don't care if she looks like Baby Jane," Hannibal responded as he took out a new cigar to smoke, "So where's she right now?"

"At her house," Face answered.

"What?" Hannibal about choked on the piece he bit off. "Where's she going?"

Face looked at Hannibal and answered a bit hesitantly, "She's not _going_ anywhere, she's going to be at the house all week, she said it'd be fine for us to stay since it's got guest rooms."

"What does she _know_ about us?" Hannibal asked.

"Oh give me a little credit, Hannibal, I'm not an idiot," Face said, "I just told her that me and three of my friends are taking some time off and need a place to crash where we won't be bothered. She doesn't know anything about our work."

"And what's she going to be doing while we're there R-and-R-ing?" Murdock asked.

"Nothing," Face said, "She's also hiding out from the public right now, so as long as we don't tell anybody where she is, she won't tell anybody where we are. Her press agent told everybody she's away at a retreat in Switzerland for 2 months."

"What for?" Hannibal asked.

"Oh you know how Hollywood is, she needs to lose some weight for her next movie role and she doesn't want anybody seeing her until she's done transforming."

Behind them, Murdock made a series of machine and robotic sounds.

"Not that kind of transforming, Murdock."

"Well _this_ should be interesting," Hannibal said cynically.


	2. Chapter 2

When they got back to Los Angeles, they caught up with B.A. and took his van and Face's 'Vette out to find Tori Langdon's home.

"Swimming pools, movie stars!" Murdock said with a country accent as he watched the line of palm trees pass them by as they drove along. "Sunshine, clean air!" he sucked in a large and loud breath and went into a choking fit.

"So where's the house, Face?" Hannibal asked.

"It's around here somewhere," he answered as he looked at all the mansions that bore a strange resemblance to one another.

"You _have_ been here before, right?" Hannibal inquired.

"Well it's not like I've stayed the night."

"I'm sure."

"Is that it?" Murdock pointed to the house they just passed.

"No," Face answered.

"Is that it?" he pointed to another one up ahead.

"No."

"Is _that_ it?"

"No!"

"Is _that_ it?" Hannibal pointed to another house up ahead.

"Uh…yeah! That's it," Face said.

"Check it out, Hannibal," Murdock said, "Huge pool, big lawn, tennis courts."

Hannibal checked out the surrounding area and noted, "Lot of vacancies on the block too, few witnesses, if there's a grill out back, it's perfect." Hannibal signaled for the van to follow them as they turned into the driveway.

The house was two stories tall with white vinyl siding to look like painted woodwork, nothing particularly fancy though it looked like one duplex stacked on top of another. Lots of windows, Hannibal guessed from how many were on the front of the house alone that there must be near 20 rooms inside.

"So where is she?" Murdock asked.

"It's not like she's a welcome wagon," Face said, "The idea is we go about our day, and she goes about hers."

"And never the two shall meet, is that it, Lieutenant?" Hannibal asked.

"Something like that," Face answered as they got out of his car.

B.A. got out of the van and joined them. "This the place, Hannibal?"

"Apparently."

"Well what're we waiting for?" Murdock asked, "Let's go in."

* * *

"Tori, hello?" Face called out cautiously as he opened the door and stepped in.

"Anybody home?" Hannibal came in right behind the lieutenant.

"City Health Inspector!" Murdock bellowed as he stepped in behind Hannibal.

"Shut up you crazy fool!" B.A. warned him.

"Well if _that_ don't bring her out, she ain't here."

"Miss Langdon!" Hannibal called out. No response.

"This might be trouble, Hannibal," B.A. said.

"Right, let's check it out."

Since the house was so large, everybody took a different part to search. Hannibal and B.A. went upstairs to check the bedrooms for any sign of Tori or any sign of a struggle, Face checked the dining room and the kitchen, Murdock went around a long corridor from the front hall to a series of other doors leading to rooms he had no idea what they could be.

Murdock held his breath as he looked from one door to the other incase he heard the sound of somebody else breathing, that would be a tipoff where to search first. He heard something, and it didn't sound good. It was a definite feminine voice, only there were no words, only a continuous series of muffled, excruciating moans, and they were coming behind a closed door at the end of the corridor. Murdock thought about going back to get the others incase he needed backup, but decided there was no time to waste, and he charged the door and busted it open.

The woman laying on the floor screamed at the top of her lungs at the sight of Murdock flying over the threshold. Unfortunately the pilot lost his footing and tripped and fell right on top of her, also unfortunately for him, she had been laying on her stomach and facing him, so when he dogpiled on top of her facing the opposite direction, he was met with a very awkward situation. It was also at this time he realized there wasn't anybody else in the room and the woman was not in any immediate danger, except the trauma that was ensuing from him leapfrogging her.

"I'm terribly sorry," he said as he rolled off of the screaming woman, "I'm terribly sorry, I didn't mean it. Are ya hurt?"

"Who are you?" she shrieked at him.

"I…" Murdock didn't get a chance to answer, at that time he could hear the stampeding footsteps of three other people.

"What's going on?" Hannibal asked as all three of them about busted through the doorway.

"That's what _I_ want to know!" the woman said.

"Tori," Face stepped to the front.

"Templeton, _these_ are your friends?"

"Yeah," Face answered, "We were trying to find you."

"Oh, I didn't hear you guys come, I've been in here all morning," Tori said.

It was now that Murdock looked around and realized what it was he'd heard. In the corner of the room was a TV with a workout video on, and on the floor where he'd just pinned Ms. Langdon was an exercise mat, and getting a good look at Tori Langdon's whole body now, he saw she was tall and blonde, in her late 20s, in one of those brightly colored workout outfits that looked like it was made of a one piece bathing suit with a belt, purple leggings, white sneakers, and blue leg warmers. And she must've been at it a while because even her hair was sweating.

"Allow me to introduce you," Face said, "This is Hannibal Smith, that's B.A. Baracus…"

"And the guy who tackled me like a greased pig?" Tori asked.

That earned a few exchanged glances from the other three men. Face looked to Murdock, whose only action of response was to pull his baseball cap clear down over his face.

"That's our pilot, H.M. Murdock," Hannibal explained. He took a step over towards the younger man and peeled up the bill of his cap to see Murdock's face that was starting to resemble the inside of a blood orange.

"Captain?"

"I thought there was an intruder in here, Hannibal," he explained.

"An intruder?" Tori laughed, "Nobody comes around here, that's why I'm hiding out here until further notice."

Murdock looked her up and down another time, and he scratched his head.

"Well, Miss Langdon," Hannibal said, "We're very grateful for you letting us stay here for the time being."

"Oh, no problem," she told him, "Any friends of Templeton are welcome here." She went over to the TV and shut it off. "I'll show you the guest rooms."

"Do you live here alone?" Hannibal asked.

"You could say that," she said as they left the room.

"Who cuts the grass?" Murdock asked.

"The gardener," she answered.

"Who does the cleaning?" he asked.

"The maid," Tori answered, "she's only here three days a week."

"Who does the cooking?" Murdock asked.

"What cooking?" Tori turned and asked.

"Can we stop in the kitchen first?" Hannibal asked, "I need to check something."

"What's that?" Tori asked.

"If we're going to have anything to eat while we're staying here," Hannibal grumbled to Face.

Face rolled his eyes.

* * *

"I should've known better than to trust a woman on a diet," Hannibal said as he slammed the refrigerator door shut, "There's nothing in here, just a bunch of diet soda and crudités."

"And the only thing in the cupboard is some diet shakes," B.A. added.

"When this woman goes on a diet, she goes all in, doesn't she?" Murdock asked.

"There's not even any beer in here, clear sign of a bad hostess," Hannibal commented. "After we see our rooms, B.A. and I are going to head into town and pick up some groceries, nobody can live off of this junk."

"Can I come?" Murdock asked.

"No!" B.A. told him.

"Can I make a list then?" he asked.

"Go ahead, Captain, but try and keep it under 20 items," Hannibal said.

Murdock took a pen out of his pocket, but not seeing any paper around, took a napkin out of the holder on the table and started jotting down his requests.

"And while they're doing that," Face said as he pointed to the window, "I'm going to get some sun. The whole side yard's out of the shade currently." After the time they'd had, all he wanted to do was kick back in a sun lounger and pass out.

Murdock also went to look out the window and he responded to the lieutenant, "Can we play tennis instead?"

"It's all in the sun, right, Face?" Hannibal asked tauntingly.

Face grumbled, "Alright." If he had to guess, he'd wager that Hannibal was hinting at the fact they didn't want to find out what might happen if Murdock decided to play tennis alone. Glancing out the window again, he could just picture the damage that would ensue, he didn't know how, but he was sure Murdock could somehow hit those tennis balls clear off the court and right through these windows. Yes, much as he wanted to relax and do nothing, better that somebody be there who stood a chance of hitting those projectiles right back at the Captain.

They heard footsteps running down the stairs and a minute later, Tori reentered the room and said, somewhat out of breath, "The maid got your rooms fixed up before she left, they should be to your liking."

"Anywhere Decker isn't is fine with me," Hannibal murmured to his men as they headed for the stairs.

* * *

A talking golf ball was bad enough. It was nearly impossible to hit a speeding tennis ball when Murdock insisted on doing the talking for it.

" _OUCH!_ " the pilot screamed at the top of his lungs as Face hit it back at him with his racket. He'd been doing this for nearly half an hour and 30 balls, and Face was about at the end of his rope.

"Murdock, will you quit that?" Face demanded, "It's ruining the game."

"Ruining _your_ game, Faceguy," Murdock responded as he pointed with his own tennis racket, "Just imagine how the poor tennis ball feels." He stepped over the net and marched up to the lieutenant and asked him, "How would _you_ like it if somebody treated you like _this_?" and with that, he swung with full force and hit Face with his racket.

"OUCH!"

"There, you see?" Murdock asked.

"Oh shut up," Face said, "How do _you_ like it, huh?" and he retaliated by hitting Murdock with his racket.

Murdock taunted the lieutenant by replying sneeringly, "Is that all you got? You really _are_ flabby, Lieutenant, you got to put more elbow grease into it, like _this_!" And he hit Face with his racket again.

"Ow! Oh yeah?" Face swung harder and hit Murdock again.

The two of them kept yelping in pain and hitting each other until their argument was broken up by the sound of somebody clearing their throat. They both turned and looked and saw it was Tori carrying a tray with two glasses on it.

"Is something wrong, Templeton?" she asked.

"Oh nothing," Face answered, "We're just having a little discussion is all."

"Well don't even think about having a discussion with me," she said, "I thought you guys could use a drink."

"Thanks, Tori, we really appreciate it."

Murdock picked up his glass of lemonade and knocked back a third of it before he started choking and realized there was no sugar in it. Maybe he should've known better but he didn't think _anyone_ was that low.

"Hmm, tart," he said in a very low, guttural voice.

"I read that Lucille Ball makes it like this," Tori told them, "Half as much water and no sugar."

Face tried his hardest to feign any optimism about having to drink any such concoction.

Murdock decided to change the subject to draw the attention away from the face the lieutenant was making as he choked down his own glass. "So, you want to join us in a game?"

"No thanks," Tori said as she set the tray down on a table and collapsed into a lounger, "I hate tennis."

The two men looked at each other, and Murdock asked her, "Then why do you have it?"

"It was already here when I bought the house," she answered as she leaned back and closed her eyes.

Murdock started to ask her another question, then he realized she had fallen asleep almost immediately.

"I guess when she said she'd been working out all morning, she wasn't kidding," he said to Face.

"Guess not."

"Faceguy, you mind if I ask you a question?" Murdock asked, "How much weight is she trying to lose?"

"Oh you know, the standard 10 pounds the camera adds," Face answered, "Her agent said once she gets it off she'll be a shoe-in for her next role."

"Yeah but uh," Murdock pointed back to the unconscious woman in the lounger and asked, "Where's she supposed to take it off of? There ain't much to her as is."

"Uh," Face shrugged, "I don't know, I never asked her about that, never saw any reason to."

"I don't know," Murdock said, "She loses too much weight, she gonna disappear completely, then we'll have an invisible woman in our midst."

"Well, that's Hollywood," Face remarked.


	3. Chapter 3

"Really, B.A., I think you're overreacting," Hannibal said as they walked in the door with several bags of groceries.

"Well I don't," B.A. told him, "Every time you go in a bar, the devil goes in with you."

"If he does, he can pay for his own beer," Hannibal said as he held up the six-pack he'd had to hold out the window the whole way back from the store since B.A. refused to allow it _in_ his van. "You know as well as I do that in moderation there's nothing wrong with a little alcohol."

"I don't care, I _still_ don't believe in it," B.A. responded, "Every fool whose life was ever ruined on account of that stuff always said there was nothing wrong with it."

"This is true too," Hannibal admitted, "but B.A., how long have you known me?"

"That a trick question?"

Hannibal rolled his eyes. "Have you _ever_ seen me lose control of a situation?"

B.A. snorted and remarked, "That include your 'piece of cake' plans?"

Before Hannibal could reply, the back door opened and Murdock came rushing towards them, yelling, "Oh boy! Food!", and took the bags from Hannibal.

"Oh boy, you're back," Face dryly mocked the pilot, "Maybe now I'll be able to get some rest."

"What's been going on while we were gone?" Hannibal asked.

Face pointed an accusing finger towards Murdock, "This guy's been running me ragged all afternoon, _and_ beating me black and blue."

"Really, Face," Hannibal said in a tone that hinted at disappointment in his lieutenant, "Your ego is as shallow as a kiddie pool. Just because he plays tennis better than you is no reason to—"

"I'm not talking about that, I mean literally, he's been using his racket to beat me like a piñata. I'm going to be covered in bruises tomorrow," Face whined.

"He didn't knock out any caps, did he?" Hannibal asked.

"No."

"That's good," the colonel responded, "A little coloring ain't gonna hurt you, but if we have to replace those teeth again, you won't be good for anything."

"Gee, thanks a lot," Face remarked, "You sure know how to pick a guy up."

"Well if you'll excuse me," Hannibal held up the pack of beer, "I have six friends to put on ice for later."

"Them ain't no friends, Hannibal," B.A. told him.

Hannibal ignored the sergeant's comment and proceeded to the kitchen with Murdock bringing up the rear.

"So what's on the menu for dinner, Colonel?" Murdock asked as he dropped the bags on the table.

"I got some meat so we can have a cookout," Hannibal answered as he put the beer in the fridge, then he looked around and asked, "Where's Miss Langdon?"

Murdock looked out the window and said, "Here she comes now."

The back door opened and Tori stepped in covered in sweat. Either that, Murdock thought, or she decided to jump in the pool with her clothes on, which he highly doubted.

"Hey guys," she said breathlessly.

"Miss Langdon," Hannibal said civilly. He reached into one of the paper sacks and pulled out a package of hamburger, "Would you like to join us in a barbecue for dinner?"

"No thanks," she said as she went over to the fridge and took out a diet soda, "I'm off meat right now."

"That's inhuman," Murdock said.

"I'll see you guys later," Tori said as she headed out of the kitchen.

Murdock looked to make sure she was gone and he turned to Hannibal and asked him, "Colonel, do you think she's overdoing it?"

Hannibal merely shrugged and responded, "Hollywood's a very demanding industry, it's always got its actresses on some crazy diet, if it's not to lose weight then it's to gain it, look at Shelley Winters."

"Yeah but…" Murdock tried to think of how he wanted to pose his question, "Is it safe?"

"Hollywood doesn't care about healthy, only thin, and they're able to get away with it because the vast majority of the public hasn't figured out yet that they're not the same thing," Hannibal replied. "Thankfully the craze has passed of every woman trying to be Twiggy."

Murdock's mind was starting to wander, and he didn't particularly like where it was going.

* * *

Face had finally gotten upstairs to the guest room he was staying in, looked out the window overlooking the tennis court, then collapsed on his bed and was looking forward to getting some shuteye before dinner.

That, however, didn't seem to be in the cards. Not five minutes after Face closed his eyes, he heard something. He sat up on the bed and tried to figure out what it was, and where it was coming from. It took a minute but it finally came back to him. Tori had a workout room on the first floor, and he guessed it must've been in the general vicinity of right underneath his room. And the noise he was currently hearing from the floor above was her exercise bike, and, looking at the clock, he could just imagine that he had this irritating racket to put up with until dinner. Brainstorming, Face got an idea and got up from the bed. Maybe he could talk Murdock into swapping rooms with him, the noise couldn't possibly bother the pilot, _nothing_ bothered him.

As it turned out, Murdock wasn't even in his room. Thinking quickly, Face decided maybe Murdock wouldn't even be aware his room had been switched if Face took all his stuff out of his room and swapped it with Murdock's stuff in his room. Luckily he hadn't unpacked yet, he took his bags across the hall and stuffed all Murdock's stuff back in his bag and took it to the other room and tossed it in. Trying to remember the layout of the floor below, Face figured now he ought to be over the dining room instead, and there wouldn't be anybody there right now, so there shouldn't be anymore noises to keep him awake.

He was wrong again. He'd no more laid on the bed and closed his eyes, than he heard a horrible screeching sound and he jumped to his feet. This bedroom window also overlooked the driveway, and the driveway was in direct approximation to the barbecue grill off the back porch. And he recognized the noise he was hearing as Hannibal lighting the charcoal with a blowtorch. Even once he knew what it was, Face still couldn't relax. He decided to move again. He picked up his bags and decided he was going to swap rooms with Hannibal, the colonel had barely been up there long enough to really see his room, surely he wouldn't mind switching. Hannibal's room was to the back of the house, there wouldn't be any noise bugging him in there. Once again, the lieutenant swapped the luggage, and made himself at home. He _had_ to get some sleep, Hannibal wasn't the only one driven to the brink of exhaustion after everything they'd done lately.

Face had just closed his eyes and started to relax when he felt somebody shaking him and heard somebody calling him. He was very annoyed to look up and see Murdock standing over him trying to get his attention.

"Murdock, _what_ is it? I _just_ closed my eyes!"

Murdock pointed to his wrist and answered, "It's dinnertime, Faceguy, you been sleeping for an hour."

"What?" Face checked his own watch, and couldn't believe it. Indeed it _was_ going on 6 o' clock. How was it possible? It didn't feel like he'd even gotten to sleep.

"Man," he said as he got up, "I've gotta get some sleep."

"You gotta get a burger first, they're ready," Murdock told him.

Face tried to pull himself together but he didn't feel fully awake, even though he had no memory of feeling asleep either. After dinner he was planning to come back to his bedroom and sleeping until noon the next day.

* * *

The four men got their food dished up and sat at a table out by the tennis court and had a relatively civil dinner, a new record, B.A. only tried to choke Murdock twice during the meal.

"Where's our esteemed hostess?" Hannibal inquired as he looked around.

"I don't know," Face shrugged, "I didn't see Tori earlier."

"Maybe she got a strange aversion to being around all the meat she's off of," Murdock commented, "if she got within 10 feet of these burgers she'd probably turn into a dog tasting blood and just _pounce_ on the whole meal."

"It wouldn't surprise me," Hannibal said, and told his men, "I once dated an actress-"

"Anybody we know?" Face asked.

"I don't think so," he responded, "Anyway, anytime her agent found a new role for her, she had to go on a crash diet, but I'll tell you as soon as she made the weight and got the job, at any press party dinner, half of the buffet would disappear before she went home, though I'm sure part of it went into her purse for later."

"So how come you don't see her anymore, Colonel?" Murdock asked.

"After a while I started to consider the possibility she might be one of those sleep eaters, I didn't want to wake up with chunks bitten out of me because she got hungry in the night," he answered. "Nice girl, but I feel sorry for whoever's with her now. Hope they got separate bedrooms."

B.A. about choked on his burger because he was trying not to laugh, all the while struggling to maintain his typical scowl, wordlessly expressing his disapproval of some of Hannibal's comments.

"Hannibal," he said, trying to not give in to a fit of laughter, "You shouldn't be talking about women like that, it's disrespectful."

"So is what she did last time we went out to Spago," Hannibal replied, "As far as I know we're _still_ not allowed back there."

* * *

"We might be on vacation but I feel like we just got done with another 'piece of cake' mission," Face said as he yawned and rubbed one eye.

Murdock looked at his watch, and conferred with the clock on the wall, and concluded that he was right the first time, it was 10:30 at night. Even he knew they shouldn't be this tired this early in the night when they weren't doing anything.

"The problem is we're not on a real vacation," he told the lieutenant, "If we were somewhere out in the fresh air where we could be one with nature, we'd be so laid back we'd need a jack to get back up."

"Murdock, I don't _want_ to be one with nature," Face told him, "Insects and pollen and dirt and my allergies."

"Here you got smog and pollution, your allergies only apply in a rural setting?" Murdock asked.

"I like it here," Face replied, "We've got everything we could need, air conditioning, indoor plumbing, ice for our drinks, a real bed, not an army reject cot in a smothering tent."

"Yet you're _still_ complaining," Murdock said.

"I am _not_."

"Are too."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Children," Hannibal cleared his throat as he entered the living room, "What's going on?"

"Nothing," the two younger men answered.

"Well do _nothing_ more quietly," Hannibal told them.

"You bushed too, Colonel?" Murdock asked.

Hannibal yawned and answered, "I haven't sat down since we got here, I'm going to bed, and I'm tempted to stay there until noon tomorrow."

"I'm with you," Face said.

"Oh no," Hannibal shook his head, "You stay in your own room."

Face scowled at him.

"You turning in now, Hannibal?" Murdock asked.

"I'm going to get a drink first," Hannibal said, "I had to wait for B.A. to go upstairs so I don't get any dirty looks when I crack open my beer."

"I'll join you," Face said as he followed after the colonel.

"Me too," Murdock added as he brought up the rear.

"Oh joy," Hannibal dryly remarked.

The three men bumped into each other as Hannibal stopped just in the kitchen doorway. Face and Murdock pushed past to see what the cause of it was, and they got their answer when they saw Tori in the kitchen with a water bottle in hand, wearing a silver slim suit.

"I thought you guys had already gone to bed," she said.

"Just on our way," Hannibal answered, and looked her up and down and asked, "What in the _world_ is that?"

"It's this new thing they've come up with," Tori answered, "You wear it to bed and it takes weight off of you while you sleep."

"Hmm, must be some kind of new sexy lingerie," Murdock said, and murmured under his breath to Face, "Nothing says 'I'm hot' like dressing up like a baked potato."

"Are you going to bed, Miss Langdon?" Hannibal inquired.

"In a moment," she nodded, "I just came to get a drink before I head up."

Murdock couldn't be sure, but he would've sworn that he saw Tori holding something in her hand behind the water bottle, something she slipped to her other hand and hid behind her back as they'd come into the room, something that looked suspiciously like a pill bottle, as he was an expert on. It wasn't any of his business, but something just told him that it wasn't aspirin she was trying to make sure they didn't see.

The pilot replayed the day's events as far as he could account for Tori's actions, and added all up, it just didn't settle with him. But who was going to listen to the crazy mental patient? He knew the guys didn't think much of it, and he knew she wouldn't listen to him, she didn't even know that he'd broken out of the psychiatric ward. And somehow, Murdock didn't get the impression that if she _did_ know that, that she'd be anymore inclined to listen to him.

Tori slipped out of the kitchen while the men sat down to a beer. They killed time shooting the breeze while they knocked back a cold one, and once the beer was gone, they tossed out the cans and headed up to their own rooms for the night.

* * *

Murdock heard 2 other doors slam up and down the hall, and he walked over to the middle of his room, but he didn't get ready for bed. Instead he went over to his suitcase and pulled out his Walkman and a few cassettes. He loved his Rolling Stones, and he loved R&B, and he loved his occasional Beatles or the Who, and he was taking well to the new music coming out these days as well, but there was another he loved so well, and nobody, not even the rest of the Team knew about it. Murdock got frustrated when he couldn't find the tape he was looking for so he turned his bag upside down and poured everything out on the bed. There on the top of the heap was his copy of Close to You.

America had been in a great turmoil during and even after the years of the Vietnam War, and the sound of the nation was no different. At the time he'd gone off to war, acid rock had been born but it hadn't yet crept into his neck of the woods and the biggest things to rock the young folk in his Texas hometown were still Elvis and the British invasion. 6,000 miles away from home he'd gotten a crash course in the metal rock that was forcing its way onto the airwaves and into people's living rooms. It might've been one thing to listen to it at home in the privacy of your own bedroom, where every day is just a mundane routine, but it was a whole other worldly experience to have those sounds running around your head in the middle of a warzone. Coming home, he'd discovered the music hadn't toned down just because the politics were dwindling out, rock and roll was still king but the rock got harder and harder.

The Carpenters had already been out before Murdock left for Vietnam, but at the time he hadn't cared much for their stuff. Coming home had been another story. His first month in the VA, he'd gotten a radio and scrolling through the stations one night, he rediscovered them and their far softer beat, and it was like a breath of fresh air after all the mayhem and anarchy he'd been exposed to nonstop for years. At the time it felt like reaching out into a dark abyss and finding another human life. For the first time since he'd been shipped home, he felt hope, after that he collected every album, caught every TV performance. Over time though, anybody paying attention could see there was a problem, and being privy to the insight of the best psychiatrists at the VA, Murdock knew what it was long before anybody else did. Maybe what came next shouldn't have been a surprise, or maybe Murdock just didn't want to admit what he ominously suspected.

February 4th, 1983 was a black day for him. He'd been watching the TV in his room when the news report came on, after years of pretending to swallow his pills and take his medications, he had a breakdown and had to be sedated for real, and he'd welcomed it gladly, hoping beyond hope if he went to sleep, he'd wake up and the whole thing would be a nightmare. But it wasn't. After that, the world ceased to make as much sense to the pilot as it did before.

Being a mental patient, Murdock knew about as much about eating disorders as anyone else in the medical profession did, which was far more than the average citizen knew at the time. It was indeed a very real mental problem that just happened to take on physical symptoms, since people could see the physical and not the mental, they deduced that it was a very easy problem to fix, but Murdock knew better. He'd spent many an hour on Dr. Richter's couch discussing the whole thing. There was some solace there that it gave him something else to pour out over, openly and honestly for once, and saved him the trouble of making up bizarre things to talk about to substitute for any inquiries about his past with the A-Team.

Murdock tried to squeeze all the thoughts in his head to the far recesses of his mind. Instead he looked at the beautiful young woman on the front of the tape jacket. He couldn't separate the past from the present, he couldn't divide then from now. Maybe what was happening here wasn't the same thing, but Murdock couldn't shake the foreboding sensation in his body that it was perilously similar, and for some reason he was the _only_ one that was noticing it. He prided himself on being crazy but this just felt like the whole world got flipped upside down.

Anxious for a feeling of stability in his otherwise lunatic life, Murdock plugged his headphones in, hit the play button and let the soft soothing vocals lull him to sleep as they had many a night before.


	4. Chapter 4

Face yawned as he opened his door and stepped out into the hall, and was surprised to see Hannibal also coming out of his room. It was just going on 7 in the morning.

"I thought you were staying in bed until noon," he told the colonel.

"Eh," Hannibal shrugged his shoulders, "Got me flashing on all the times I stayed in bed sick as a kid. I can still feel each and every bedsore." He looked the lieutenant up and down and added, "You look like hell."

"Thanks a lot," Face replied.

"Didn't you sleep?" Hannibal asked.

"I slept," Face said, "I don't feel like it though. I had a dream I was inside a giant hamster wheel running all night."

"Subconscious signals from the body," Hannibal replied, "It's saying you need more exercise."

" _More_?" Face about shot through the roof as they headed down the hallway, "We already ran your infamous torture chamber obstacle course _three_ times this past month, _each_ time complete with a 10 mile run to town and back as punishment for not making time."

"Maybe I should make it 20," Hannibal said with his condescending chuckle.

Face parroted his laugh and replied, "And maybe a blanket party's in order."

"I _heard_ that, Lieutenant."

Face cringed. Then he asked, "Should we get the others up?"

"No," Hannibal answered, "They're on vacation too, let them sleep."

The colonel and the lieutenant headed down the stairs and realized that they weren't the only ones up. Echoing through the rooms, they heard the unmistakable noise of Murdock singing opera coming from the kitchen.

"Oh no," Face groaned.

"Let's see if we're not too late to stop him," Hannibal said.

They ran into the kitchen and saw they were in fact too late, Murdock was already in the midst of cooking breakfast, which meant they were going to be at the mercy of whatever he decided to toss into the food.

"Morning, Murdock," Hannibal feigned optimism at the sight before him, "You're up early."

The colonel had no idea. Murdock had slipped out of his room in the middle of the night when he was sure everyone else was asleep, and crept back down to the kitchen to find out where Tori had gotten her pills from. He wanted to find out what she was taking so he knew what, if anything, they had to worry about. In a normal kitchen it would be very easy to stash some pills, but when there wasn't any food in the kitchen, that would make most hiding spots more obvious. Murdock tried to figure where the young lady would hide her pills that she could get to them but nobody else in the house would come across them. Obviously the refrigerator was out, and for that matter he supposed the oven was too. So then the pilot started tearing apart the cupboards and sifted through plates, bowls, glasses, dish towels, dish rags, containers of flour and sugar, and then finally in the back of a top shelf in a cupboard on the far left of the kitchen, he found them.

Whatever it was, she had a lot of it, and none of it was in prescription bottles either, most were in boxes, over the counter pills you could buy at any drug store or grocery store. Murdock gathered them all up and put them on the table so he could see what all Tori had stashed away. A regular triple threat: diet pills, sleeping pills, and caffeine pills, all different brands, all in assorted measures of use. Some boxes were half empty, some were brand new. Now Murdock knew it was an unwritten rule that everybody in Hollywood took pills, all kinds of pills, for everything and for nothing. By now everybody was so used to that fact that nobody batted an eye at it. At the VA they tried to give Murdock pills 3 times a day, that's because _he_ was crazy, what was everybody else's excuse just because they lived in this zip code?

The way Murdock saw it, he could do one of three things. One, he could confront Tori about this, two, he could draw it to the attention of the rest of the team and the whole lot of them could confront her about it, or three, he could hide the pills for now and keep an eye out for what she did when she couldn't find them. He opted for the third choice. He always prided himself on being insane but now he really felt like the inmates were running the asylum, he seemed to be the only one in this house aware that there was a problem. He'd tried subtly bringing it up with the others, he'd tried more direct approaches, but the others hadn't caught on, he didn't trust his tact to bring it up with Tori because he didn't know her well enough, and if he said the wrong thing it might backfire. So instead, he'd say nothing, and let the actions that would no doubt ensue, speak for themselves. For that matter, though, he decided it would be a good idea if somebody was actually in the kitchen when Tori found the pills missing. So he'd sat at the table for three hours waiting for the sun to come up, then once it started to get light he got up, stretched his legs, and decided to start on breakfast so he wouldn't look suspicious.

"So where's our esteemed hostess?" Hannibal asked, "Getting her beauty sleep?"

"She went out jogging at 5," Murdock answered. He'd heard her come down and saw her leave through the front door, watched through the window as she stretched, then took off running. "She hasn't come back yet."

"Wouldn't take her for a runner," Hannibal commented from where he stood by the stove, and shrugged his shoulders, "Go figure."

Face looked at the pilot and said, "Hey Murdock, you look terrible, guess you had a night like I did."

"So far it seems BA's the only one around here getting any rest," Hannibal noted.

"I don't think you know the half of it, Colonel," Murdock murmured.

The back door flew open as Tori dashed in, she pushed it shut behind her and about collapsed against the door.

"Morning," Hannibal offered.

The young actress struggled to catch her breath a few times before she responded, "Good morning."

"Hey Tori," Face said, "I didn't know you got up this early."

She laughed as she toweled off and replied, "Really, Templeton, don't you know actors are _always_ up at five in the morning?"

"Oh I know," Face commented as he gestured towards Hannibal, "I _know_ , but I figured since you're on vacation that your internal clock would be switched to snooze."

Tori huffed and puffed again and shook her head, "If I get out of step now, I won't be any good by the time I get back to work."

"Would you like to join us for breakfast?" Hannibal inquired.

"No thanks," she shook her head, "I'm on an exact diet, all I have in the morning is a shake and I'm good to go."

"Go where?" Murdock asked.

"Shh," Face elbowed him.

"Because I can think of a few places," Murdock added.

* * *

Murdock let out one of his infamous howls as he cannonballed into the swimming pool. The splash was near deafening and the water scattered for five feet in any direction from the edge of the pool. When they were deciding where to go for vacation, Face hadn't mentioned that Tori had a swimming pool, but Murdock decided to come prepared just in case, and he was glad now that he did. Even if it was Hollywood, he still thought it'd be rude to go skinny dipping in a strange lady's yard.

It was 10 in the morning and it was turning out to be a beautiful sunny day. The water was cool but not freezing, though Murdock wouldn't have minded that. He liked cold water, it made him really feel alive. Surfacing in the pool, he sucked in a deep breath and rubbed the water out of his eyes and saw that he wasn't alone.

"Oh!" Tori said, surprised, "I didn't know anyone was out here."

That much seemed to be obvious, Murdock thought. For a woman obsessed with toning down her body, it seemed unusual that she'd come out to the pool in a bikini when she was still 'a work in progress' as it were.

For a moment, Murdock's mind froze. Suddenly it clicked back on, but he was torn between staying in the water, actually hunkering down in it, or getting out to speak with her. He settled on staying where he was for the time being and said to her, "Miss Langdon…"

"Call me Tori," she said.

"I wanted to apologize again about yesterday," Murdock felt his cheeks turning a hue redder, "I know that was an awkward way to get acquainted."

"It's alright," she said as she seated herself on a sun lounger, "I…guess I should be grateful that you jumped into such action because you thought I was in trouble."

Murdock bobbed up and down in the water like a bath toy as he tried to decide what to do. Finally he asked her, "Would it be alright if I come over there?"

"Sure," she answered.

Murdock pushed himself up onto the sidewalk and headed over to her and sat down on the lounger next to hers. His unfortunately collapsed with him on it and he fell flat on the ground. Tori nervously tittered at the sight of it.

"Must be one of those cheap jobs made in China," Murdock said as he got up and set the chair up again. When he was sure it was going to hold, he sat down again, carefully, and asked, "So you come out for a swim?"

"No," Tori shook her head as she put on a pair of sunglasses, "I just came out to work on my tan, that's a big thing in movies now, nobody wants to see a pale skinned girl anymore. In the 70s you could get away with that, now everybody wants to see bronzed goddesses or something."

"I would've thought you'd have one of those tanning beds for that," Murdock said.

"What?" she looked at him, "And get my insides cooked?" she shook her head, "I'll take my chances with the sun, as far as I know nobody got baked to death from it yet."

"Not in moderation anyway," Murdock replied as he smoothed back his sopping wet hair.

An awkward moment of silence passed between them before the pilot thought of something else to say. "So, Faceman says that you used to be in movies some years ago?"

"When I was a kid, yeah," Tori sat up on her chair and asked him, "Did you ever see 'Six Little Onions and how they Bloomed'?"

"Oh yeah, a while ago," Murdock said, "I saw all of those back when…" he did a double take, "That was you?"

"Yeah, I was the middle daughter in the Lansky family," she answered, "It was good work, and I made a good living off it, my parents put most of it into a trust for when I turned 21 so I'd have plenty to live off of. As long as I was cute, I had job security, but once I was out of high school, they didn't know what to do with me anymore. Nobody wanted to see Lacey Lansky doing anything too risqué or adult, but I was too old for anymore kid roles, so, I quit acting for several years."

"So why'd you finally come back?" Murdock asked.

"I missed it," she said, "And I figured it was long enough now nobody would remember my earlier work. And, as long as you can constantly reinvent yourself, you'll always be in the running for the next big thing."

"And that includes," Murdock tried to tactfully approach the subject, but thankfully he didn't have to, she finished his thought for him.

"Maintaining a girlish figure about 10 years after the girl has gone out of it," she said, "For some reason, Hollywood's never had any interest in any grown woman who couldn't double as a 12 year old boy, same with modeling, as I found out the hard way."

"You're a model?"

"I tried it when I quit acting, but I could never make the weight, so I was fired," Tori told him, "I hate to tell the fashion industry this, but size 6 people need nice clothes just as much as size 2 people do. Unfortunately in Hollywood you don't even get looked at for a role unless you're a size 5 at most."

"I see," Murdock said quietly, and he had a bad feeling that he _did_ in fact.

Murdock was well acquainted with the term 'the cat that swallowed the canary', right now he felt like he had a canary stuck in his throat. It would be so easy to come out and tell her he'd found her pills, and see what happened, but he'd sit on it for now, he swallowed the canary and decided to bide his time. The truth would come out eventually.

* * *

Clip-clop-clip-clop-clip-clop-clip-clop

Hannibal was dreaming he was riding a horse down Main Street, trying to look casual as he waved to all the passing cars, whose passengers just stared out their windows at him as if he were the weirdest thing they'd ever seen. Then the dream shifted gears and he was racing his horse across the plains, meeting up with the Lone Ranger and Tonto. Only once he got his horse to stop, they disappeared and instead he met with a different masked lawman who preceded the Ranger on the screen, The Eagle.

"The vigilantes are coming," he said, and did a double take. Somehow that line sounded _so_ familiar.

Suddenly without warning, his horse reared up and took off again, its hoofs hammering the ground beneath them as they rode on.

Clip-clop-clip-clop-clip-clop-clip-clop

Hannibal opened his eyes and realized that that noise he was hearing wasn't a part of the dream, and it wasn't a horse either. He reached over and turned on his bedside lamp and reached for the clock on the nightstand. When he saw the time, he was furious. He threw the clock to the side and hopped out of bed. He'd just opened his door when he saw the others coming out of their rooms too.

"Colonel," Murdock started to say something, but Hannibal cut him off.

"I know," he replied as he tied his robe shut, "I'm going to put an end to this right now. Come on."

The four men headed down the stairs, turning on the lights as they went, and returned to the workout room, where the lights were still on, and Tori Langdon was dripping with sweat and panting like a racehorse as she ran on her treadmill, she didn't even notice the A-Team coming in, not until Hannibal marched over and turned off the power to the treadmill.

"What'd you do that for?" she snapped as she turned to him.

"Miss Langdon," Hannibal said firmly, "This is getting out of hand, it is 2 o' clock in the morning."

"I know that," she said as she stepped off the machine.

"Why aren't you in bed?" Hannibal asked.

Murdock opened his mouth to answer, but Tori responded, "I couldn't sleep, I figured I might as well be doing something."

"You couldn't try knitting?" Face asked, "It's a much quieter hobby."

"Miss Langdon," Hannibal said in a borderline threatening tone, "this has got to end, all you've been doing since we got here yesterday is running around like a decapitated chicken trying to lose weight. You're going to die at this rate, if you don't kill yourself from exhaustion, _we're_ going to kill you so we can finally get some sleep."

"That's not funny," Tori shook her head, her words a bit slurred.

"It's not meant to be," Hannibal replied, "now I know very well what it's like to jump through hoops to land a specific role, that's the nature of the business, and I am well aware of that unwritten rule about the camera adding ten pounds, but if this is the length you have to go to to get the role, drop it, find another role, something less demanding."

"You don't get it!" Tori yelled at him, surprising all of them but especially Hannibal, who had never been talked to like that by any woman in his life. If she caught the stunned look on the colonel's face she didn't pay it any mind, and she continued, "You don't understand anything! This isn't about _one_ role, Mr. Smith, my agent told me if I didn't lose 20 pounds I'd _never_ work in Hollywood again, _nobody_ will hire a fat actress! Acting is what I've always done and it's the only thing I like, that I'm good at, and that I _want_ to do, if I don't have that, I don't have _anything_. I've had to lose weight to get most of the roles that I did, I was always able to do it before. I've done _everything_ , I've tried _everything_ , every exercise, every diet. I've done the cabbage soup diet, the grapefruit diet, the apple cider vinegar diet…"

"What's that?" Murdock asked.

"You drink vinegar before each meal," she said, and added, "I've done the liquid diet, the water diet, the cigarette diet, the sedation diet."

"What's that?" Murdock asked.

"You sleep for days instead of eating," Tori explained, and continued, "the macrobiotic diet, the military diet, the Beverly Hills diet, the caveman diet, the vegetarian diet, the cookie diet, the cake diet."

"What's _that_?" Face asked.

"You only eat desserts until you lose weight," Tori said.

"What idiot would recommend _that_?" he wanted to know.

Tori ignored him, and told Hannibal, "I've done Stillman, Scarsdale, all vegetables, all fruit, high fiber, high protein, low salt, low fat, no fat, low calorie, no calorie, negative calorie, low cholesterol, no cholesterol, no meat, no dairy, no sugar, I've worked out with Jack, Jane and Debbie, I've done calisthenics, I've done Jazzercise, I've done aerobics, I run for miles each day and _nothing_ works anymore, this time the weight won't come off, so I've been doing _everything_ together, _something_ has to work, if I can't lose the weight, I'll never work again, I'd rather die than lose my career now just when I was making a comeback."

With every few words of her hysterical rant, Tori's voice hit a higher decibel than before, the last few words were jumbled together in a shriek as she reached out to grab him with both hands and instead collapsed on the floor.

Hannibal grabbed Tori and pulled her to her feet, she wasn't speaking coherently now and her eyes couldn't seem to focus on anything.

"What happened?" Face asked.

"She's overdosed!" Murdock said, and pulled the pill boxes out of his pocket.

"Help me get her out of here," Hannibal said as he pulled her towards the door, "let's get her to the living room and set her down."

They moved quickly through the hall and got to the living room and eased Tori down onto the couch while Murdock explained his discovery last night. Hannibal took the boxes and tried to figure out exactly what they were looking at.

"You're sure these are the only pills in the house?" he asked.

"She took a bottle upstairs last night," Murdock said, "her room's the only place I haven't been able to check."

Hannibal addressed his captain and lieutenant and told them, "Go upstairs, tear that bedroom apart, bring back every pill she's got there." He turned to B.A. and told him, "Get me the phone book, I'm going to find a doctor to make a house call."

"Shouldn't we take her to the hospital?" Face asked.

"You kidding?" Hannibal replied, "Half of Hollywood OD's every night, they can do this out of a kit these days."

B.A. came back with the phone book and Hannibal flipped through it and told him, "Get her some water, don't let her fall asleep."

B.A. got a glass of water but had to about force it down Tori's throat, she was bordering on unconscious now and couldn't even raise her eyes past looking at the floor. B.A. tried to get her to stay focused and stay awake, but it was a losing battle. He heard Hannibal let loose with a couple of good swears and slam down the phone.

"What happened, Hannibal?" he asked.

"Hollywood doctors," Hannibal grumbled as he flipped the page, "they said they can come out and give her a shot of something. Treat an overdose with another drug, it's no wonder this business is as screwed up as it is."

They heard two sets of feet running down the stairs and Face and Murdock promptly returned.

"All we got is one bottle, painkillers," Face tossed them to the colonel, "I checked, there's only three missing."

"No empties in the trash?" Hannibal asked.

"Nothing," Murdock said.

"In the process we did come across some," Face cleared his throat, "Feminine things that suggest her weight's still in a healthy range, her body isn't shutting down on her yet."

"These aren't prescription," Hannibal examined the bottle. He looked to Murdock and asked, "And you're _sure_ you confiscated all the others last night?"

"Positive," Murdock said.

"It doesn't take 24 hours for an overdose to kick in," Hannibal said, "She didn't overdose, her body's just given up trying to run on empty."

"So it's safe for her to sleep?" Face asked.

"Outside of food and fluids, that's precisely what she _needs_ right now," Hannibal said as he grabbed Tori by the shoulders and eased her into a horizontal position on the couch so her head touched the armrest like a pillow. He turned to the lieutenant and told him, "Go check the kitchen, see if there's any Gatorade in the house, if you can't find any, put some salt in a glass of water and bring it here."

"Salt water?" Face said with a grimace as he headed for the kitchen.

"She's completely soaked," Hannibal felt the young woman's skin and hair, "anybody know when she started using that damn machine?"

Murdock slightly raised his hand and said, "I heard it start up around 1, Colonel."

"It's a wonder she hasn't run every last electrolyte out of her body and dropped dead," Hannibal commented. He missed the expression on the pilot's face when he said that.

Face promptly returned with another glass of water and mentioned, "I suppose it's a small favor we didn't find anything else...you know, no water pills or laxatives. Uh…does anybody know if that story about the tape worm pills is true?"

Hannibal took the glass and tried to get Tori to drink it. "And she's not eating anything as is so she can't be throwing anything up, small favors indeed."

"So what do we do now, Hannibal?" B.A. asked.

The colonel set the glass on the coffee table and shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know, this is out of my area of expertise."

"But it's _not_ out of mine," Murdock spoke up.

The others turned and looked at him.

"What do you mean, Captain?" Hannibal asked.

The pilot looked at his friends and told them, "This isn't a physical thing, you can't just _make_ her eat and fix this."

"What' you talking about, you crazy fool?" B.A. asked.

"I mean this is a mental thing," Murdock said, "I've seen it at the V.A., it's not just women, men get this too, there are some guys in the ward that have had to have feeding tubes inserted because they wouldn't eat, some of them got down to 90 pounds and still wouldn't eat."

"Why?" Face asked, completely lost.

Murdock turned to his friend and answered simply, "Nobody knows. Only _they_ know, and half the time even _they_ don't know."

"Oh brother," B.A. grumbled.

"I'm serious, B.A.," Murdock said, and gestured to the young woman laying unconscious on the couch, "you heard her, she's been doing this for most of her life, as soon as we were gone, she'd turn around and do it again, and this time there wouldn't be anybody here to stop her."

"So what's the answer?" Face asked, "Put her in a hospital?"

Hannibal looked at the captain with an equally perplexed expression.

Murdock thought about it for a minute and shook his head. "I don't think so. I've heard Dr. Richter talk about this, you can't just shut it off like a light switch, so I'd take a guess that she doesn't actually have the disease, yet, but I think she's borderline and could come across the border if something isn't done." He looked at the young woman and said, "Somewhere in there she's had the resilience to fight this, once she makes the weight she stops, meaning there's been a point she finds contentment, a 'right' weight if you will, but if something isn't done _soon_ to break the cycle…" He closed his eyes and remembered the TV announcement in '83.

"Well," Hannibal said, getting the attention of the three other men in the room, "whatever we do, this woman needs to start getting something back in her system. We'll have to find an all night store and get some stuff."

"Like what?" Face asked, "We already stocked the fridge."

"I wouldn't trust it," Hannibal replied, "There's no telling how long she's been starving herself. Better to start small and build."

"Ah geez, Hannibal," Face said, "You don't mean baby food, do you?"

"Nothing that drastic," he said, "just something light, chicken broth and yogurt, crackers, stuff like that."

"Like she's been sick and _couldn't_ eat," Face said, "I get it."

"Good boy." Hannibal turned to Murdock and said, "you go with him, Captain. B.A and I'll stay here and keep an eye on her."

"Oh brother," B.A. said, "Looks like we ain't getting any sleep tonight."

"No," Hannibal shook his head, "But _she_ will, and that's something."


	5. Chapter 5

Tori slept the rest of the night and well into the morning. The guys took shifts watching her to make sure nothing happened. By breakfast, Hannibal, Face and B.A. all looked exhausted. Despite being up most of the night, Murdock didn't look worse for the wear.

"So what _do_ we do?" Face asked, "If the answer isn't to put her in a hospital, what about at least getting her to a doctor? Or having one come here?"

"Like that genius I got on the phone last night?" Hannibal asked and shook his head.

"Do shrinks make house calls?" Face asked as they drank their coffee.

"No," Murdock spoke up, not so much in answer, just plain disagreement, and he explained, "I could call up Dr. Richter and ask him to come out here and see her, but I really don't think he's going to tell her anything that I haven't already picked up at the V.A."

"So you think you can help her?" Hannibal asked.

"I might," Murdock said, "I mean I can't promise anything, but if nothing else, I think it'd be easier to hear coming from me than some doctor." He thought back to their discussion at the pool the other day. "I think we could get a rapport going better than he could, Dr. Richter is a nice guy, but he's a doctor, impersonal, sterile, clinical, antiseptic, she wouldn't react well to a guy like that telling her she's got a problem. I'm sure it'd be better coming from me, I've got more tact."

"What do you mean coming from you?" B.A. asked, "First time you met her you scared her to death _jumping_ on her."

"He might be right, B.A.," Hannibal said, half tired, half hopelessly, "He's the only one here with any knowledge on this subject." He turned back to the pilot and asked, "So what're you going to have to do, Murdock?"

"First, she has to wake up," he answered.

* * *

Tori finally woke up around 11, she opened her eyes and slowly took in the sunlight pouring in through the windows, and the four men in her living room who were watching her like a pack of hawks.

"What happened?" she asked as she slowly started to sit up, "What time is it? What's going on?"

"Miss Langdon," Hannibal said, "do you happen to have a death wish?"

"What?" she asked, almost a laugh. She looked to Face and asked him, "What's he talking about, Temp?"

"It's a fair question, Tori," he replied, "You know the stuff you've been doing is plenty damn stupid, you _could_ have killed yourself."

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said as she started to get up.

"Oh no?" Hannibal asked, "Did you play hooky the day they explained in health class that starving yourself, combined with exercising 10 hours a day, _and_ taking four different kinds of pills around the clock, is a very _dangerous_ way to live?"

"Albeit short lived," Face added.

Tori looked at them defensively, put her hands on her hips and told Hannibal, "I don't think what I do is any business of yours."

"But you _did_ say last night that nothing's been working to lose the weight," Murdock mentioned as he came to the front of the line.

"So what?" Tori asked.

"So that means your body is trying to tell you it _can't_ lose the weight, least of all not the way you're trying to do it," Murdock said.

"What're you talking about?" she asked.

"It's called starvation mode," Hannibal said, "if your body knows it's not getting food regularly, it's going to hold onto what it does get, the human body has a primal instinct to survive at all costs. Now," he reached for her and he didn't miss her small movement back and away from him. Undeterred, he continued with his original statement, "Before anything else happens, you're going to eat an actual meal, none of that diet junk, your body has to take in food again for things to get back to normal."

"What's normal?" she replied defensively.

"You know he's right, Tori," Face told her, and he was able to grab her arm, and started to lead her towards the kitchen, "don't worry, it's light."

"I'm not hungry," she said.

"That's physically impossible," Murdock said as he got on the other side of her incase she tried to make a break for it, "You didn't eat anything yesterday. Nobody can go 24 hours without eating and _not_ be hungry. You just won't admit that you are, there's a big difference."

The two men practically had to drag her over to the kitchen table where a single plate was set, they'd already eaten hours ago. Murdock looked through the corner of his eye and he didn't miss the ravenous look in Tori's eyes as she looked at the plate of toast, bacon, a cup of yogurt and a glass of orange juice.

"You don't want to collapse again, do you?" the pilot asked.

Wordlessly, she admitted defeat and sat down and slowly sunk her teeth into the meal, after the first couple of bites she sped up and it was gone in a hurry. Face looked to Murdock to try and figure out if this was a good sign or not, Murdock made a gesture for them to wait and see what happened next. Tori stayed at the table with a depressed and faraway look on her face, but the food seemed to settle, so Murdock picked up where he'd left off in the living room.

"You _had_ to know what you were doing was dangerous," he said.

Tori got up from the table and replied, "Nobody ever cares if it's dangerous, just as long as it works."

"But you said it wasn't working anymore," Face said as they followed her out of the kitchen and back to the living room.

"Nothing's been working anymore," she replied, "I don't get it."

"If you _want_ to lose the weight…" Murdock started to say, but got cut off.

"I don't want it, I _need_ it," Tori said hopelessly, "Acting's all I want to do, and nobody wants me if I can't lose it. I've tried, I've gone to auditions, and," she turned to Hannibal, "you ever read how they cast people in scripts?"

"Yes, yes," Hannibal answered with a small nod.

"They don't hold back, they'll specify what they're looking for for a part, ugly girl, fat girl, those are the only parts they'd consider me for."

Murdock looked her up and down and turned to Hannibal and said, "It really is a retarded industry, isn't it?"

"Some of the people in it certainly are," the colonel replied, "directors and producers especially sometimes."

"Even that would be considerable except they only give good scenes and good lines to the good looking leads," Tori said, "I didn't return to acting to be put in a corner to be pointed at and ridiculed. Everybody loved to watch me when I was a kid, they still liked to watch me when I was a teenager, but nobody wants to see me now unless I lose the weight. I managed to with the last movie I did but then I let myself go again, I always do in between parts, I just don't have what it takes to _keep_ the weight off all the time."

"How tall are you?" Murdock asked.

"5'7," she answered.

"And how much do you weigh?" Murdock asked.

A bit more reluctantly Tori answered, "135 pounds."

Hannibal and Face turned and looked at each other, sharing a mutual thought, she sure didn't look it, and they wondered where she kept it.

"I think I might be able to help you," Murdock told her, "if you'll trust me."

Tori looked at him like he was nuts, and she asked him, "Are you serious?"

"Yes," he nodded, "if you'll do what I say, I think I know something that _will_ work."

"I've tried everything else," she said hopelessly, "what is it?"

"First of all, I need to get some information from you," Murdock told the younger woman, "some private information if you don't mind."

"Like what?" Tori asked.

Murdock turned to his three friends and emphasized, "I'm going to need some privacy to do this."

* * *

"Are you sure about this?" Tori asked from where she lay on the couch, while Murdock stood with his back facing her.

"I'm positive, I've done this a thousand times." He neglected to mention that in those situations, he had been the one on the couch talking to Dr. Richter. "Close your eyes, ease your mind, _relax_."

He waited a few seconds, then turned and looked and saw that she had complied.

"Now, Fraulein," he said in a bad German accent, "I vant you to go back, back, back. Tell me your earliest memory."

Tori inhaled loudly, and after a few seconds answered, "The Mother's Day I was 1 year old, my father bought her a new recliner."

"Go forvard now," Murdock said, still with that tacky accent, "when did your acting career begin?"

"I was 8 years old," Tori answered, "There was an audition for a commercial, they wanted a little girl. They liked me. I came back and did five more commercials. Then my parents told me that a director wanted me to be one of the Five Little Onions."

"Mm-hmm," Murdock said, and dropped his accent, "How long did that last?"

"We did three movies in two years," she recalled, "Then they said that was that, and I quit acting for two years."

"Then what happened?"

"My parents got a call, the studio decided to make another one, we were older now and they could do different things."

"When did you really seem to achieve stardom?" Murdock asked.

"People always knew me way back when I did the commercials," Tori answered, "but I had a pretty normal life until I was 13, then I became a household word, least of all my character did."

"And when did you stop doing movies?"

"When I graduated high school," she told him, "by then, I'd worn the part as far out as it could go, and there wasn't anything for me anymore."

"Uh huh," Murdock said, "I want you to go back again…tell me what the most fun you had was, what was the single most fun day you had?"

She thought, and she answered, "There were two, one when I was 11, another when I was 12."

"What happened?" he asked.

"When I was 11, my parents got a badminton set, they put it up in the front yard, it was the most fun I ever had, my brother and I would go out after dinner and we'd play until it was dark. If we could've, we would've played all night. There was one time in particular we were out there for a _very_ long time, we had that shuttlecock going back and forth _forever_ until it finally landed.."

Murdock trailed off from his questions and asked, "So how come you hate tennis?"

"Tennis is a rich people's sport," Tori answered, "you never see normal people play it, always rich people in country clubs, and _always_ wearing those stupid white clothes, it's a power move against the poor. Badminton is an everyman game, no dress code, no bank account required."

"Weren't you rich when you did the movies?" Murdock asked.

"My parents took the money, put some in a trust, the rest was for bills," Tori told him, "I never had any sense of the money that was coming in from them, as far as I knew we were still always the same people we had been, a nice middle class family."

"I see," Murdock got back to his original line of questioning, "Tell me about the other time. You were 12, what happened?"

"My parents got the driveway paved, smooth cement, I had my mother's old roller skates and I'd take my radio out and listen to music while I skated on it. One night in the summer, it was hot, must've been 90 degrees, I went out after dinner, and I skated until it got dark. I was soaked in sweat and the mosquitoes were all over me, I stunk to high heaven and needed a shower when I came in. But I remember it was the most fun I had roller skating. We didn't live near a rink so it was the only way I got to use them."

"Mm-hmm," Murdock replied, "what else did you do for fun as a child?"

"Everything," she answered, "My brother and I would play on the jungle gym, ride our bikes, go swimming in the summer, chase each other around the block playing Davy Crockett and Rat Patrol and Combat!, we had the time of our lives as kids."

"And is he an actor too?"

"No," she said, "he went away to college to become an engineer."

"What about friends?"

"I had a few but they never stuck around, their parents were always moving, six months was about the longest any of them stayed on the block," she answered, "and we never saw each other again after they left."

"Now," Murdock said, "tell me about the first time you had a weight problem."

"We came back for the next Onions movie," Tori remembered, "I'd…grown a bit during those two years between…they had me wear a girdle so nobody could tell I was a teenager now, they had me on a diet on the set, all I could eat the whole time we were filming was crackers and water, no calories, no mess."

"How long would you be there?" Murdock asked.

"All day," she answered, "getting hair done, makeup done, wardrobe alterations, sit around for the lighting to change, for the sets to be finished, for the effects to be set up, I had a tutor on the set because there wasn't any time for school."

"What about PE?"

"No, no time for that," she said, "no time for that, no time to go out and play with the other kids, no time for anything, just working all day, every day."

Murdock nodded even though she couldn't see him. "Did you date much in high school?"

"No, no time," Tori answered, "no time, and nobody wants a fat girlfriend anyway."

"What _was_ your weight during your teen years?" Murdock asked.

"110."

"And that's fat?"

"It was where everyone else was concerned," she said, "my last semester in public school, the gym teacher singled me out as being too fat, said that's why I couldn't ever get to the top of the rope. This was after I'd been on the studio's diet for two months, and she told me to lose 10 pounds or she'd personally flunk me."

"They can do that?" Murdock asked.

"I thought she could. Then when you're on set all day and you're not allowed to eat anything and you can only drink diet sodas and water, you get the message they're not so subtly sending," she told him.

"And all you do all day is sit around waiting to do your scenes," Murdock was starting to get the picture.

"It was stifling, I felt suffocated," Tori confessed.

"Why didn't you quit?" he asked.

"There were times I wanted to, but I loved acting, I didn't want to give it up, I thought if I did quit again, I wouldn't be able to come back later and start again," she answered.

"What about when the movies were over, and you had your own life, what'd you do then?" the pilot asked.

"Anything I wanted," she answered, "I got my trust money, it was enough to live off for 10 years, and still live better than I'd grown up. I got my own place, I got a housekeeper, a cook, all I had to worry about was what I wanted to do, and I tried to figure out what that was. I traveled, I took different jobs, I thought about college but I choked on the SATs."

"Did you date much then?"

"Some, most of them were a real bore, our ideas of a good time severely clashed. A lot of them also couldn't get past the image of me as one of the Lansky sisters, and I think it put them off."

"Were you aware of any weight problem while you were out of the movie business?"

There was a momentary pause, then, "Aside from the modeling gig, no, it wasn't really an issue when I wasn't on camera. And when I first came back it was alright, first audition I went to I got the part. The next couple were easy too, after that my agent had to start calling in favors to get me casted, after that he gave me the ultimatum to drop some weight, or find another career because he couldn't carry me as a client anymore."

"And what's your social life like now?"

"Lacking, now that I'm an actress again I'm supposed to have all these famous friends, but we have nothing in common. I know some of the other women in Hollywood, they go out for a night of drinks or out to dinner at one of the who's who restaurants to be seen and mobbed by the press, I just stay home."

"I see," Murdock said.

* * *

"So you're saying she got fat from making movies?" Face was trying to understand what it was Murdock was saying when he came out of the living room and told them his theory.

"No, Face," the pilot replied, "I'm saying when she went back into films, they took a lively, zesty adolescent girl and made her sit down and shut up 9/10ths of the day when she worked, they zapped all the life energy out of her. And they used every archaic trick in the book to present the illusion she was still a little girl instead of acknowledging that girls grow up and get…grown up, and out. Somehow everyone around this girl convinced her she had no purpose in life if she couldn't stay at 100 pounds or under, and that hasn't changed now that she's an adult and come back to the industry, they're still running her through the same hoops. Any chance she had of a normal life dissolved when she was 13 years old, it's no wonder she's as messed up as she is."

"But you think there's hope," Hannibal seemed to read between the lines.

"The fact that she didn't carry this obsession over into her non-acting life, yeah, I do," Murdock answered, "it's just going to take a lot of work."

"What' you got in mind, Murdock?" B.A. asked.

"Something that hasn't been tried before," he answered, "something that should actually _work_."

"That'll be the day," Hannibal said, "A lot of these fad diets everybody in Hollywood is on, have been recycled and renamed and go back to before I was even born, even before the turn of the century people were saying the same things, the fact that they keep coming back under new names ought to tell people something; they don't work."

"So why do people keep doing them?" Face asked.

"Because they promise quick results and that's what everybody wants, never mind that it gets undone just as fast."

Murdock thought it over, then he went to the kitchen door and opened it. Tori stood on the other side with an anxious look on her face.

"Well?" she asked, "Can you help me?"

"Yes, I think so," he answered, "but you'll have to do exactly what I say."

"I will, I'll try anything," Tori said.

"We're not going to start today," he told her, " _Today_ you need to get rehydrated and eat 3 real meals and take it easy, your body needs a chance to recover from what you've been doing to it. And in the meantime I want you to compile a food diary of everything you _have_ been doing to yourself, _and_ a list of what you were eating before you started this crash diet. _Tomorrow_ we'll get started," he turned to his men and added so only they could hear, "and that'll give me a day to figure out what I'm doing."

"Oh man," B.A. smacked the side of his head, "Lord help us all."

* * *

"I don't like it, Hannibal, I don't like it one bit," B.A. told Hannibal that night as the three of them sat around the kitchen table drinking coffee.

"Yeah," Face agreed, "I mean I went by Murdock's room earlier, I could hear him quoting 'Rocky', this is his next character."

"Murdock adapts and discards personas like people go through Kleenex," Hannibal said.

"Don't remind me," B.A. said, and counted them off on his gold covered fingers, "Captain Cab, Pasadena Murdock, the Range Rider."

"Remember when he was a psychologist for nuts?" Face added, "And when he got that remote and made himself a walking variety TV show?"

"Don't forget the plaid sports coat named Willie," Hannibal recalled with a smirk and a chuckle as he smoked his cigar.

"That's all different, Hannibal," Face said, "He was just screwing around before, now it's another person's life he's going to be involved in. He said he can _help_ her, what's going to happen when it doesn't work?"

"Faceman's right," B.A. said, "what that crazy fool know about personal training? He gonna make that mama worse than she was before, there's no telling what kinda crazy ideas he's got."

"The _only_ stuff he would know is what we do at your sadistic obstacle courses," Face said, "and if he tries that with Tori, it'll _kill_ her."

"Your confidence in our captain is overwhelming," Hannibal dryly remarked. He sat up straighter in his chair and told the other two, "It's true, Murdock has no experience in personal training, but he _is_ the only one of us here with any actual insight to Tori's problem _and_ what the next step will be if she carries on as she has been. He's also the only one who paid enough attention to realize there was a problem here in the first place. I'm willing to let him try, he's already more on the ball about it than we are, _and_ he's willing to do the work. Let him try whatever he's got planned, and let's just see if it gets anywhere. We'll give him a chance but we'll keep an eye on things, and if it starts to look like things are getting out of hand, _then_ we'll step in and intervene, but only once we see actual proof that his plan is harming Tori more than it's helping."

"Hannibal," Face said skeptically, "Do you _really_ think Murdock can help her lose 20 pounds before we leave?"

"I guess that we shall see what we see," Hannibal said for an answer.

"Oh boy," the lieutenant and sergeant groaned in unison.

Face folded his arms on the table and slammed his face down on his arms and grumbled, "This is not going to be pretty." He picked his face back up and added, "And I get a strange feeling that we're not going to be getting much rest during this vacation."

"Why Face, whatever gives you that idea?" Hannibal asked smugly.


End file.
